FRESH FAST CASUAL! Mio Sushi was doing everything right. Their commitment to freshness and quality was legendary and as good stewards of the earth, everything served was “sustainable”. Now all they needed was a brand and store design with sufficient power to launch their planned new franchise growth.

GIVING THE CUSTOMER A GREAT EXPERIENCE. We were approached by James Han, Mio Sushi VP to do just that. Having built successful brands in the past with BSR, Han knew success not only comes from serving great food but also from giving your customer something they can’t get any place else; a great experience! In this case, a great Mio Sushi experience. He also knew that working with BSR would get him something he couldn’t get any place else. A powerful Fast Casual concept in a box, a fresh new brand, a customer experience designed to generate revenue, and an easily implementable roll out model that would allow him to get ahead of the curve and get stores on-line quickly.

THE BRANDING IS A MIX OF TRADITIONAL IDEALS VIEWED THROUGH A CONTEMPORARY LENS. Creating the brand identity was an interesting challenge. How best to honor such a traditional art form as sushi and still make it sleek and modern enough to stand the test of time? The results were a blending of the two. Using a contemporary re-imagining of Japanese family crests and sleek typography comprised of a minimum of strokes we nailed the identity right out of the box. Mio Sushi’s new brand identity was approved by the client at the first presentation meeting with no changes what so ever.

TO DESIGN A STORE FOR FRANCHISING IT HAS TO BE REPEATABLE. Keeping in mind the minimalist roots of the culture we completely re-imagined the store environment and the architecture. The result is cool and sophisticated with fresh greens, bright fuchsia and warm crèmes set against a backdrop of interesting textures and distinctive lighting. The entire concept was designed for repeatability meaning that it is made up of a list of scalable components. That means that almost any vanilla shell, almost anywhere in the country can be turned into a Mio Sushi in only a fraction of the time needed to do a traditional build-out.

THE NEW MIO SUSHI FLAGSHIP STORE opened in Seattle the first quarter 2012 and has quickly positioned itself as the new, category-defining brand leader in Fast Casual Sushi. In fact, it is so popular there are lines out the door every day. Mio has since opened additional locations in the Seattle area and estimates an additional 20 new franchise locations coming online annually for the next 5 years. 

See This Project>